A Conversation in the Sun
by Lady Crysania Majere
Summary: subtitled: "Yraels Bell". Mogget was once the Eighth Bright shiner, called Yrael, and it was his choice that bound the Distroyer. The Seven Charter who remain beyond the Ninth Gate have learned. They have sent back their spokesperson.


**A/N: *grins* I've been wanting to write a GarthNix fic since before there was a section, but I've had neither the time nor the inspiration (and I still don't have the former. Or the latter, for that matter) ^^;;. Hopefully the fic will be fairly enjoyable, though it has a TINY spoiler in relation to Mogget. ^^;; *glomps the shot, pale skinned man* ^^ HE IS MINE I TELL YOU! MINE! MWHAHAH! ^^ eh…enjoy the fic. And R/R. ^^**

**Disclaimer: The Dog belongs to Garth Nix. Mogget belongs to Garth Nix. The WORLD BELONGS TO ****GATH** NIX! MWAHAHHA! PHEER HIS POWERS!! MWHAHAHAH!!! *coughs*****

**And enjoy the ficcy…**

A Conversation in the Sun. 

Yrael's Bell

_By LCM_

The small white cat was curled in a patch of sun, on a filched cushion, by the rose garden. A secret smile was on his face, and with half lidded eyes he watched as a song bird flitted from one thorny branch to another. _Just a little further, he coaxed it silently, __just a little further…. Claws unsheathed, one white paw shot out, fast and quick as a bolt of lighting to sweep his prey to him. His smile becoming feral, he grinned down at the bundle of trembling feathers between his paws and batted at it playfully, allowing the creature to observe just enough of an opening that it might try for escape, before he dashed that hope with the closing of the gap. The cats smile widened, his pink tongue coming out to delicately lick his lips. About to truly begin the enjoying of his snack, the cat's head suddenly tilted, and he stilled momentarily, feeling eyes upon him. Normally, this would not have caused the cat any hesitation, but there was something decidedly familiar about the feel of the stare and, grudgingly, he decided it worth his attention. Looking up from his prize, he paused for a moment, then drawled, _

            "I know you're there. No use hiding you know. One might think that with your acclaimed nose you might be aware of your own stench, or at least considerate enough to bathe. And not taking that into account, I would have believed that by now you should have realized; it is impossible to sneak up on _anyone smelling like that." The cat tilted his head further and waited, ears pricked._

            When no one answered, he gave the feline equivalent to a shrug, as if telling them it was their choice, and that he hadn't really cared at all. Then he went back to his bird, which was currently pinned to the ground with his paw. Green eyes narrowed in pleasure, having now apparently forgotten the presence the feline had addressed, and anticipating a meal.

            It happened so quickly that even the cat, awaiting _something, was not ready. The large wet nose appeared from out of nowhere to shove the paw holding the bird to the ground aside, leaving the previously ensnared feathered creature free to escape in a panicked flight to the rose bushes. The cat, amazingly, swore, and three bloody scratches appeared on the meddlesome snout. An immense black and tan mongrel jerked back her face, rubbing her muzzle, _

            "I don't bathe." The Disreputable Dog, a creature who was the remains of the ancient and powerful being Kibeth, snorted reproachfully at the cat, "And you might have at least pretended to be surprised. I suspect you like taking the fun out of life, Mogget. Or is it Yrael again now?"

            "Mogget will do. Unless you would have me calling you by _your true name, Kibeth." The cat's voice was clipped. "Though I don't suppose my preferences will have any impact on what you choose to dub me. You've ever been impossible."_

            "Less so then some," the Dog muttered, shooting a reproving glare at Mogget, who was now gingerly washing his paws. The silence stretched out for quite sometime, until, morosely, the Dog questioned,

            "I don't suppose you would be interested in why I am here?"

            "Not in the slightest. Unless it is to bring me fish. Which I doubt." Mogget's whole attention was on his grooming. "So go away. You've already lost me one lunch today, without having the decency to bring me a second. I won't have you around when I'm getting my third." It was obviously a dismissal. 

            "Now you see _here_-!" The words came out in a low growl, which was followed by the sounds of stretching sinews and the grinding of bones. A woman stood where the Dog had been  -tan and lean, her short, unkempt hair flying everywhere- and with a quick swipe of her hand she was holding the snow-colored cat up by the scruff of his neck. "I am _trying_ to do something decent here, and you are not-" She was cut off as the cat, too, changed. The short, emerald-eyed almost-albino man who had been the cat hissed fiercely, ducked, and was out of her grasp in a second.

            "I do not care, Kibeth!" Elegant fingers ending in pointed nails clenched and unclenched, and a long fall of white blond hair was tossed –with a angry shake of the head- out of the small mans face, "I do not _care what I am not. I do not care __what you are trying to do. I do not care _how_ you passed back from the Ninth Gate. You seem to forget_, I am no longer bound_, do not treat me as if I were still!" Silver fire danced in Yrael's green eyes, and the tall woman stilled, remembering days so long ago that they were little but fragments of a dream, and remembering in the those same eyes (they were wholly silver then) the fierce, unforgiving temper and power of the Mogget creature. No, he was no longer bound. One hand reached down to the pouch at her side, and the other brushed black hair streaked with blond and tan out from brown eyes. She wondered now if this had been a good idea. Coming to him. _

            "Very well, Yrael," His present state, and her reminiscing, had called his ancient name, unbidden, to her lips, and she spoke to him with the edgy politeness she had in the Beginning. "You shall have it as you wish. I will inform the other six that you have declined the offer. And specifically shall tell Belgaer that you did not wish his gift."

            The small man paused at that, and a calculating look entered his expression. Belgaer was called Thinker, one of the two Wallmakers (that the other stood before him, Mogget did not wish to go into), and among other things, known with more then a little renown for the qualities of his gifts. 

            "The Thinker you said?" Pale lips twitched upwards in a disquieting smile and the white clothed back and shoulders arched and shrugged in what might have been a human version of a cat's full bodied stretch. "Perhaps I'll listen to you after all, Hound. If you'll have the decency to bring me some fish."

            The woman across from him looked dubious at the cat's sudden change in mood, but, she reassured herself, the mention of Belgaer and his presents could often change a persons mind. Even a person so guileful as the Mogget. She did not trust him, but still, the other six had decided, (at the time, she had been one of the ones who had convinced them) and she would fulfill that decision now. Sighing, the Dog acquiesced,

            "The fish will have to come afterward, though."

            "Mh. As long as it isn't Red Jack."

            An impatient nod of the head showed that the Dog was running out of what little patience she had with the albino. She waited for him to continue on in his preferences of fish so that she could denounce him and be on her way with a reason, but he was silent, so she could not. Instead, Kibeth spoke.

            "Very well." The agreement was resigned, even as the words brusque and curt. 

Finding fish for Mogget had to be one of the more degrading things a person could do.

With that, she sat down and began to shuffle in her pouch. 

***

            A bone, a curled bit of wire, a miniature collection of assorted tools and trinkets, two pieces of polished metal, a book entitled _Syandi's__ Study on the Natures and Being of Free Magic Creatures, a shiny glass ball the size of a large mans fist, a gleaming mirror, a carving, and a piece of wood (it looked to be an arm) that appeared to have broken off the end of the latter, these did the Dog pull from her pouch, a thing which didn't seem big enough to hold any one of the items, save maybe the wooden carving's broken limb. As she pulled even more from her pack, she cursed, she muttered, and she spoke._

            Her hand reached in and grabbed out….-_A lopsided cup,_-"…You know….about the gift" (damn it al1!) -_A glove,-. "…Belgaer did a good part of the fashioning of course…." She grunted. -_A jade necklace,-_. (Where in the hell…?!) "…but I did most of the spells…." She grinned. –_A_ _glob of lint the size of a quarter,-_ (by the Shiners, I know it is in here somewhere!) "After all, I'm the one whose had to suffer you presence these past few months…" –__A silver piece,- (Damn it!) "And no one else could really remember…" –__A large, dark colored box….- _

            Mogget never learned nor cared what it was that 'no one else could really remember', for at that moment, the Dog let out a triumphant bark, or as much of a triumphant bark as a human can let out. The other items were shoved aside, and the box picked up reverently as she stood to face the short pale man. Her right hand lay on the boxes top gently, and she grinned at him conspiratorially, all earlier enmity forgotten (despite the amused smirk he now wore). Then she began to speak.

            "Beyond the Ninth Gate the sentient remains of other six, including Astarael, still linger. I met with them there, after Oranis's rebinding, and told them of Its defeat. Understandably, they were skeptic." The Dog tilted her head a little, purposefully leaving out the specific cause of the skepticism, Yrael's choice, a choice that had saved them all, had come as a shock to her as well, "Once I had convinced them on the truth of my story however…" She grinned and shrugged, "there was chaos." The Dogs grin widened, she was fond of disorder. "And debates." There she frowned, her nose wrinkling. Kibeth was a being who was all for action, and debates to her were an unnecessary and tedious business. "It took the rest of them forever, -you would not believe the things I had to argue in _your_ favor!- but we finally decided. Belgaer and I made it as a kind of invitation of sorts, but even if you choose to decline, you may keep it. We all agreed on that. You do disserve _something._

"And then we had to decide on the name!" She was rambling now, as she talked, she became less and less sure of if what she was doing was at all prudent. Maybe she should just return to the others, tell them she had failed. None would hold it against her….But she would. So she continued. "Ranna wanted Hopebringer, I intervened. That was but one decision, and so outside of your personality that it could never work. Spells like this take a measure of truth to hold, you know. And I didn't think you'd like it. Saraneth was in favor of Clever, but Belgaer said it was to close to Thinker. Mosrael would have had it be Mad," The Dog snorted, "mh…you'll be pleased to know that didn't go through either. In the end, they chose my suggestion; Concealer is better then Hider (and _everyone_ knows your reputation for that, hiding, I mean), after all, and I think it fits you." Tanned fingers fumbled with the box's invisible latch, and with a sudden clink, the container's lid slid backwards, and open. Speaking words in the removed, polite manner of someone addressing a stranger to ask a favor, she then intoned,

            "Yrael, what was offered in the Beginning is offered again."

            Inside the red silk lining of the box, a large silvery bell gleamed.

            "This is the Eighth Bell, and again, you are invited; will you be our Eighth Charter?"

            For the first time since she began her speech, she dared to look and see the reaction of Mogget. And was gratified.

            Green eyes wide, ashen limbs unsteady, smooth face hinting at undercurrents of surprise and indecision, all Yrael's being was focused on the bell. _His_ bell. It had always galled him a little to know that all the others had one, and that he was the only one who did not. Even Oranis had a bell in Its name, if made by Itself, not Belgaer. And now…the silver of the bell's metal gleamed, proclaiming it different, if just as –no, more- beautiful as all the others, the tiny golden flames and lights of the charter dancing and intertwining with the shining free magic in billions of pictures and patterns, as they had in all of the original bells. Yet these images were not alien to him, as all the others had been. _This_ spiral, _those intertwining lines, in them, he could see his existence with more clarity then he had since his binding. A pale hand reached out and grasped the handle; white oak, where all the others were mahogany, and his eyes caressed the bell, even as did his hands. _

The Dog took this moment, this breach in Mogget's defenses, to add, "Nothing shall be required of you. The Charter is already made; you need not give up yourself for it. Several new Master Marks may come into being, but they will draw nothing from who you are now, and only tap a little from who you were then. I ask again, will you join us?"

Pale hands grasped the snowy handle, and swung the bell slowly once, allowing the sound to echo through the garden. It sang of cleverness and guile, of capture and of freedom, of choices and of binding, of birds and fish, of sun and of life.

Mogget smiled.

"I will."

_In another place, on a dusted shelf, beneath a passage which spoke of Seven Bells, words were scribed into a large black tome whose cover proclaimed it _

_The Book of the Dead._

__

_In the same dark ink, and in the same spindly hand as had written the rest of the book, the lexis penned itself…._

_"…And there is yet another bell, called Yrael, who is known as the Concealer, for he is clever beyond the imaginings of his Seven companions, a hoarder and hider of dark secrets. He is Eighth, and Last, his power a boon to any who seek to avoid death and all its creatures. For Yrael hides his wielder from those whose qualities are not of life, keeping them unseen in all senses. But to any who would use him, beware. Yrael is the most cunning of all the bells, and rings only for his own purposes. To touch him lightly is to invite oblivion, for, allowed, he will conceal his wielder from everything, including the wielders self…"_

_***_

In a sunny garden, near a gurgling river, a short albino man watched a tall woman wade through the water in search of fish, the former occasionally calling out amused suggestion as the latter called back a curse.

And Yrael was pleased.

*******

**A/A/N: *grins..another authors note* Wah…I do hope it was bearable. ^^ Mogget rules the world. The Dogs cool to. …ooooooh..*_*…..we could have a Dog/Mogget pairing….. Kibeth/Yrael….3/8…. CHARTER THREE/BRIGHT SHINER EIGHT!! WAH! *_*….COOKIES TO ALL WHO REVIEW!!!.....AND MY OWN PERSONAL LEGIONS OF MUTANT PLOT BUNNIES TO THOSE WHO WILL WRITE A MOGGET/DOG STORY!! MWHAHA!!....^^v….WAH! *runs off***

**…and if you care to tell me exactly what YOU think of the pairing….do! ^^;; MWHAHAH!!! *skewers a plot bunny* WHAHAH!!! ^_^**


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